Field
The present disclosure relates generally to flip-flop circuitry, and more particularly, to a flip-flop design that may have a decreased number of transistors with clock connections.
Background
In many circuit designs, devices in the design may use the most power when a state of a signal through the device changes. For example, a transistor logic circuit may use the most power when it changes states from a first logic state to a second logic state. The device may use almost no power or very low power when the device maintains a particular state, e.g., a logic high or a logic low. Complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor (CMOS) devices, for example, generally have low static power consumption because one transistor of a pair of series combination transistors in a CMOS device is generally off most of the time. The series combination of transistors draws significant power only momentarily during switching between states, e.g., from logic high to logic low or from logic low to logic high. Consequently, CMOS devices generally do not use as much power or produce as much heat as other forms of logic devices (assuming other factors are generally equal, such as the clock speed used, the logic functions implemented, the inputs switching, the outputs switching, the internal signals switching, or any other factors that may impact power consumption or heat produced).
Many circuit designs may be clocked by a clock source. The clock source may be the most common switching signal in the circuit design. The number of circuits, e.g., CMOS transistor pairs that are driven by the clock source will generally impact the power used by the circuit design. It may generally be preferable to decrease the power used by a circuit design. Decreasing the power used by a circuit design may increase battery life in a battery powered system, allow for greater functionality for the same battery life in a battery powered system, decrease heat generation, decrease the need for cooling of the circuit design, allow for increased circuit density due to decreased heat generation, to name only a few benefits.